Playing an expansion as current content has been a lacklustre MMO experience

[Shurrikhan]

Fancy words just to repeat exactly what I said? Conveniently just like the other you left out the more important bit of that post. Let me repeat and emphasize it for you:

- Say the targeted DPS for everyone across the board is 300DPS.
- A lvl25 with only 3 attack abilities will have this 300 total redistribute to just those 3 abilities.
- A lvl90 with 12-15 attack abilities will have that same total redistributed too all of those.

So you have a high level player doing complete rotation while having every single of their ability (GCD or oGCD) significant weaker, while at the same time doing a butt load more work for the same output. That's called punishing.

So is even doing any challenging content, using minimum ilvl when doing synced runs, etc., etc. Or, in less loaded a term, optional challenge.

It is an option to put in more effort so you're not so damn bored. Since anyone likely to use said option would tend to make full use of the full kits they're nerfing their individual skill/AA potencies to be able to use, the result is the same, so you could still do that in matchmaking without it negatively affecting an average run (as if that weren't already subject to the first ego-tripping tank, princess healer, or no-AoEs/CDs DPS one comes across).

And it's not as simple as you think, scale up has its own set of the problem. Power creep and trivialize gear progression are the two of many, and a low level player will suddenly find themself become significant more powerful when pair up with a high level player, and that's not necessary a good thing. Forgot the names but there have been a few games that use dynamic scaling and most players hate it, 'cause it eliminate the sense of actual progression.

The reason a high level player think that kind of system is "fine" because it benefit them, but that benefit come as detriment to people who new to the games. Between some "minor" inconvenience to the max player (and face it, most even don't run into that often) or destroying the lvling process of new players, it's very clear what should take a much higher priority to preserve.

Scaling up, as done in the examples mentioned earlier, has no impact on power creep nor gear progression. Low-level players do not find their power varying based on their party. They simply find their party members' power levels all looking the same as theirs regardless of those members' actual levels relative to their own.

There has also been no impact from level scaling systems on the leveling process of new players except in that their queue times get greatly reduced for/in leveling dungeons.

Too much copying from WoW would be bad for both. Those that like to go back and forth for whatever reason would likely tire of both.

Better netcode? More player-friendly glamour systems? Account-wide store purchases? Avoid at all costs; another MMO might already have those elements of polish/convenience, and we wouldn't want XIV to be any less unique in not having them.

[Raven2014]

So is even doing any challenging content, using minimum ilvl when doing synced runs, etc., etc. Or, in less loaded a term, optional challenge.

It is an option to put in more effort so you're not so damn bored. Since anyone likely to use said option would tend to make full use of the full kits they're nerfing their individual skill/AA potencies to be able to use, the result is the same, so you could still do that in matchmaking without it negatively affecting an average run (as if that weren't already subject to the first ego-tripping tank, princess healer, or no-AoEs/CDs DPS one comes across).

That ... not even the same thing. You always try to reach this much? If you get a group together and "choose" synch, you're doing for yourself. People who try to solo Heaven on High is not punishing themselves, but do it on their volition. Running into low level dungeon in roulette is not a choice of challenge, you're there to help keep the content alive and help the new players out and get a reward for your time. You're not there to challenge yourself.

And cut and put the late edit from previous post here in case you miss it. Here is another example that will make it even more absurd. The issue is not only between low and max level.

- Imagine a lvl25 lancer does a certain damage with the full thrust combo in a lvl25 dungeon.
- Later on, that player made it to a lvl40 DRG and picked up a couple oGCD.
- roulette put him back into the lvl25 dungeon, and now he noticed his full thrust combo now do less damage than it was when he was at 25 to compensate for the new extra attacks he has!?!?


Imagine being the one who has to explain to him that oh you're just being punished for having more abilities now. That will destroy the sense of progression for new players. Bizarre you say? I call it actually think it through. If you can not bring yourself to put up with a 10-12min Satasha and willing to trample a new player experience due to your boredom depsite already being handsomely rewarded for it, then it's you who's acting like a princess.

Years ago you had an authentic lvling experience, the new players deserved to have that too without having it scrambled and muddled to appease to you now that you're at max level. FF14 already provide a crap ton of options for you, being to get tome or EXP on alt, you do not have to run this particular type of content to get whatever you're looking for. If it bores you, don't do it, it won't gate keep you from anything you seek. Stop being selfish and ask for everything to be adjusted to just you and yours.

[Shurrikhan]

That ... not even the same thing. If you get a group together and "choose" synch, you're doing for yourself. People who try to solo Heaven on High is not punishing themselves, but do it on their volition. Running into low level dungeon in roulette is not a choice of challenge, you're there to help keep the content alive and help the new players out and get a reward for your time. You're not there to challenge yourself.

The lower level sees either of two things:

1. The dungeon does the run in X time and another of the same job can only ever have the same animations s/he does.
2. The dungeon does the run in X time and another of the same job might have, despite equal throughput, some animations s/he does not yet have. And queues may shorten due to a higher number of supporting players queuing (especially, those grabbing the materia rewards from doing it at level cap rather than dropping the roulette from their dailies once they have leveled what all jobs they want to level).

What difference does it make to the new player that, among all the animations unknown to them, another player with the same job icon may also have some skills they do not yet know? The speed of the clear is unchanged. Its difficulty, for them, is completely unchanged. On the other hand, with the option to make leveling roulette that much less dull for higher-level players, they may see shortened queue times.

- Imagine a lvl25 lancer does a certain damage with the full thrust combo in a lvl25 dungeon.
- Later on, that player made it to a lvl40 DRG and picked up a couple oGCD.
- roulette put him back into the lvl25 dungeon, and now he noticed his full thrust combo now do less damage than it was when he was at 25 to compensate for the new extra attacks he has!?!?

Yes! Which is fine. Why would someone with far more numerous actions need to individually do equal damage to someone who has fewer actions? It's a choice the higher level can opt into, at zero disruption or difference to anyone else, to make running that content less dull despite ultimately putting out the very same throughput. If it did not crunch their numbers, you'd then have actual disruption to lower level content and forgo more frequent activity and its shorter queues. It's not that hard a concept.

Now I haven't done the exact math. But to make 16 abilities yielding the same output as 3 abilities ... each of the former have to weaker not by two, not by three, and probably will more than by 4 times. Does it make sense for Raiden thrust to be like ... 1/5 the power of True Thurst? Does it make sense for StarDiver to hit significant less than a simple full thurst? And if a lvl90DRG have to use their entire kit to get the same damage as lvl25 rotation, you'll be actively punishing the high level players.

Their relative power is unchanged. Your Full Thrust will still do 64.5% of your Stardiver. Why would you care what the level 26 is hitting for, skill per skill, as long as even under that option you are nonetheless keeping up and now are not as bored and thus more likely to help others with their leveling dungeons through leveling roulette, rather than almost certainly stopping the moment you've finished leveling what jobs you wish to level (i.e., ending as soon as you go from primarily one helped to wholly a helper)?

You seem to have the intent of such changes absolutely backwards, preferring instead a lack of choice and longer queues (fewer 90s queuing) and/or disruption to low-levels' experience (90s keep their full power), on the mere basis that, what, other MMOs do things differently so no matter what player benefits may arise, those differences must be bad?

Level scaling, instead of solely level-capping, works. We have plentiful examples of it working. And it's beneficial, both in itself and in what it does for the value per development hour of content (especially anything not forced in by MSQ) in the long run by re-opening past content into rotation at a rate far greater than the trickle that is the barely-revised "Unreal" dungeons (even allowing for faster revision of said content when it lacks something to interact directly with new portions of player kits by being based on player throughput as it is now and at the participant's level rather than what it was or, often already quite different, what it would be now at that older level cap, given power creep or kit-gutting since).

[Raven2014]

Yes! Which is fine.

No it is not!

Why would someone with far more numerous actions need to individually do equal damage to someone who has fewer actions?

Serious question?

You seem to have the intent of such changes absolutely backwards, preferring instead a lack of choice and longer queues (fewer 90s queuing)

Now you're just inventing problem. The lvling roullete had never have issue with popping, not in the pass, not now, and probably never.


The reason the current system work is because it synch to a specific point. A lvl 25 dungeon synch everything to lvl25, from potency, gameplay, gear stat while still giving the high level play a slight margin advantage. The issue with dyanmic scaling is there is no consistency.

Why would you care what the level 26 is hitting for, skill per skill, as long as even under that option you are nonetheless keeping up and now are not as bored and thus more likely to help others with their leveling dungeons through leveling roulette

If you haven't made out why would I care after I had said that much, I don't think I can say anything more that would make you understand. Bored? Unlike you, I don't play something bored me so it's a non-issue for me . Whenever I queue into a low level dungeon I just chill. I don't even comment on how the new players playing in those dungeon. Tank doing single pull? Healer don't DPS? DPS not AOE? No problemnemo. If those issue pop up in lvl70+ I may make suggestion to the players in question, but the early dungeon ... yeah, just chill and relax. And that include not making 10-15min run as if it's an endourous experience. I'm playing a game, and even if it's not the most excitement part of the game it's not like I'm visiting a dentist to have my teeth pulled.


Edit: also imagine being a lvl15 new player queued into Satasha, and see a DRG Stardive the boss following a SMN Arkmoning with Bahamut ...

[Rolder50]

Edit: also imagine being a lvl15 new player queued into Satasha, and see a DRG Stardive the boss following a SMN Arkmoning with Bahamut ...

If I was a new player and saw someone else use fancy high level abilities like that, my first thought would be "Wow that was cool! How/when do i get something like that?" So I don't see how this is a problem.

[Striker44]

If I was a new player and saw someone else use fancy high level abilities like that, my first thought would be "Wow that was cool! How/when do i get something like that?" So I don't see how this is a problem.

Perhaps because you're somehow insisting your own, personal, one-person opinion must somehow be the norm, which is a huge assumption that may have no basis in reality? I'll be a counter-point to that: If I saw someone melting the mobs while I barely have a chance to do anything, that's a major turn-off. I want to contribute. And if what I have to look forward to is doing complete, complicated rotations just to do minimal damage, that's also a turn-off.

Some syncing issues people I don't think have even brought up yet:

-It's not just a matter of potency. At early levels in particular, some classes do not have an AoE ability yet while others do. Unless you're also scaling potency on every single use based on the number of targets hit by an AoE, you'll always have higher-level players making lower-level players feel useless.

-It's still not just a matter of potency. Tanks get extra defensive abilities. Healers get extra types of heal spells. You can't "potency-adjust" that Tank A has a 10% damage reduction, a 20% damage reduction, and an invulnerability while Tank B only has the 10% damage reduction (or that Tank A has a self-heal ability while Tank B does not). You can't "potency-adjust" that Healer A has an AoE heal and Benediction (full HP restore) while Healer B only has single-target heals and no Benediction.

And to top it off, there's a direct in-universe reason for the syncing. When you queue for a lower-level instance, you're effectively using the Echo to "re-live" that experience. Which means you have the abilities you had at the time. Not what you have now.

[R041]

Regardless of whether they're doing it well or poorly, the core fact is that they're obliged to do it, and fight twice as hard as the person next to them for the same or worse output.

You're both doing things for different reasons and different tiers of rewards. You're not level 20, so you shouldn't be worried about what they're getting, only what you're getting. And you're not even competing anyway. You should be happy that they don't have to worry about rotation AND what's happening in the dungeon. But you're not a new player, you can manage to do both - Or I'd hope you can. If you want to play a level 20 forever and you think that's an enjoyable experience, you can pause your exp and stay level 20 forever. So that really says more about you than it does about the new players you think you're competing against.

I very rarely have newbies doing higher DPS than me in WoW, if they are then it's a pretty significant outlier where I accidentally brought single-target spec, or I'm just built to melt elites and bosses. If that's the case then when I watch DPS output we do a push and pull at different points in the dungeon, which is still great because we have different roles.

Some syncing issues people I don't think have even brought up yet:

We've explained that what you're describing isn't the case in games like WoW. We don't have to make assumptions, other games actively do this to help keep older players engaged with lower level play. What you're describing isn't an issue of balancing through sync, you're making excuses for what XIV has failed to do and trying to adapt it to a different model. You shouldn't conflate the two. Classes not having an AoE rotation in a Dungeon is an XIV problem that we've complained about since the beginning of ARR.

You're also trying to solve a complex math problem that you don't need to solve, it's been done. You don't need to be the engineer for MMO's. We know it works. Let's not talk about potency adjustments because it doesn't even matter - You scale the mobs/bosses to the tier of potency, not the other way around.

Also, explaining why you can't do something because of story, is the most un-fun reason anyone can come up with. You think the writers came up with Echo first, THEN the dungeons? No, Echo is a byproduct of it all. You think they wrote in the amount of dungeons and bosses for each expansion, THEN made them? Again no. Fun should always come first, adventure is priority, story secondary.

We're also forgetting that WoW has all forms of scaling, where XIV lacks the amount of options that WoW provides. You still have the opportunity to go 1-shot blast stuff, use limited kits, use full kits in lower level areas, party/dungeon/zone sync for best exp. It's just providing more and wider options. You know. Fun.

[VentVanitas]

Some syncing issues people I don't think have even brought up yet:

-It's not just a matter of potency. At early levels in particular, some classes do not have an AoE ability yet while others do. Unless you're also scaling potency on every single use based on the number of targets hit by an AoE, you'll always have higher-level players making lower-level players feel useless.

Then shift skills around on jobs that suffer at low levels, there is no reason they shouldn't of done this already, especially with DRG which unlocks Doom Spike at level 40 and is stuck with it all the way until level 62 where it gets Sonic Thrust. Meanwhile, MNK's entire AoE combo is complete by level 45.

[Shurrikhan]

No it is not!

Yes, it is. It is fine. Given that the result for/on anyone else would be identical, there is nothing wrong with expanding the attractiveness of roulettes by giving people what option works best for them (to [A] either more challenge themselves using a full kit, or [B] to simply chill, with the level-capped reduced kit).

Serious question?

Yes. Again: Why would you need to be able to, significantly or otherwise, outperform lower-level players in synced dungeons?

That players can opt into retaining their whole kits, working harder in order to be less bored if they so choose, does not necessitate their outperforming lower-level players. It's an optional challenge available for players if they want to spend that amount of time in a less devolved manner, thus expanding who all would participate in those duties, thus reducing queue times.

Now you're just inventing problem. The lvling roullete had never have issue with popping, not in the pass, not now, and probably never.

That an event happens eventually does not mean it's incapable of happening with less delay or more reliably (i.e., with smaller standard deviations in that delay).

Whenever I queue into a low level dungeon I just chill.

Okay, cool; good for you. You'd still have that option. It won't have gone anywhere. You'd just (not) flip the switch via the cog icon on the Duty List, such as via a Restrict Abilities During Instanced Level Sync (on by default) toggle right next to the existing Limited Leveling Roulette toggle.

[Rolder50]

That ... not even the same thing. You always try to reach this much? If you get a group together and "choose" synch, you're doing for yourself. People who try to solo Heaven on High is not punishing themselves, but do it on their volition. Running into low level dungeon in roulette is not a choice of challenge, you're there to help keep the content alive and help the new players out and get a reward for your time. You're not there to challenge yourself.

I don't see the problem with making this alternate kind of sync be an optional little check box when queuing in roulettes. Sure the developer intention for the roulettes is to keep lower level content alive, but that's definitely not why 99% of players do them. Generally people do roulettes for the reward, hence why the developers made them give good XP and tomestone rewards. So why not allow people the OPTION to have a more engaging rotation? Clearly it'd be more effort for the same reward, but some players might prefer that over falling asleep with their 1-2 Sastasha rotation. Heck, maybe we wouldn't have so many complaints from people getting Crystal Tower raids in the Alliance Raid roulette if those people had more engaging rotations to work with...